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Thread: Algae vs moss (FW) or cheato (SW)

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    Algae vs moss (FW) or cheato (SW)

    I assume hair algae grows and takes up nutients faster than cheato for saltwater or moss for freshwater. But does anyone have any idea of how much more? Assume that the cheato and hair algae were exposed to similar light in a 3D growth pattern, are we talking 2x as much? 10x as much? Anyone have an offhand guesstimate?

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    I don't have any hard evidence, but my guess would be hair algae will take in at least 2x as much nutrients in a given time frame. Chaeto has its own special needs and growth method. Tumbling flow, high light, and lots of room to grow are a few major things that come to mind. It is the space required that is really the downside of chaeto. It grows in a loose nit ball and while all that empty space is good for critters to live in, it isn't so good when space is a concern. I like caulerpa much better in smaller setups/refugiums because I feel it works much better than chaeto and requires much less space and lighting.

    If your talking about using chaeto in place of hair algae on a scrubber screen, 1. it won't attach and 2. If you tried to grow chaeto in this manner and if you could somehow get it to attach and grow, it would be probably 50x less efficient than hair algae, which would probably just choke out and kill any chaeto on the screen in a matter of days anyway regardless if you wanted it to or not.

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    Actually chrissu tried this on an SM100 just for kicks and it grew like wildfire (chaeto). No screen and needed a drain strainer and a modified 'spray bar' but without being submerged no tumbling needed (that's a way of getting past the boundary layer throughout the entire ball BTW).

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    I am toying with the idea of a HOB filter, definately for freshwater, and possibly for saltwater, using moss/cheato.

    The basic concept is a standard HOB design with a vertical plastic canvas growing moss or cheato instead of a standard filter cartridge. It would also have a horizontal screen over the top to keep the medium from leaving. It would have clear panels front and back with LED lights on it (possibly 100% of the time, not sure though). Cleaning would just entail pulling out the filter and snipping off some moss over the trash can.

    This should be a fairly effective mechanical filter, a good nitrate remover, and an easy way to reduce water changes in freshwater aquariums. On the downside it would probably out compete tank plants for nutrients, which is probably not a big deal for the target audience.

    This idea is not meant for serious enthusiasts, but more for people who keep a tank and just want a single simple HOB filter.

    Here is a very simple paint drawing:


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    As far as I know, cheato doesn't grow in freshwater.

    Floyd, putting chaeto in a small SM100 type box, while proven it will grow (due to the immense amount of light I am sure), is far from the most ideal method. Sure, the spray bar/boundry layer thing is taken care of but you quickly run out of space for growth. The boundry layer issue is also overcome when you tumble cheato (not talking a gentle tumble, talking a washing machine type tumble). A friend of mine with a 100G sump has a 80G partition just for chaeto and it is FULL, talking a ball of chaeto bigger than a basketball, but still doesn't provide nearly enough filtration along with his Super Reef Octopus rated and giant bio-pellet reactor on a 240G tank. In theory when running a bio-pellet reactor and giant skimmer, cheato shouldn't grow, but it grows like crazy in his sump, after the bio-pellet reactor and skimmer, even with all the extra filtration. To top it off, he feeds a dozen fish, mostly large fish/tangs just a few pinches of pellets a day, probably 1/10th the food I put in my 75G each day. My ATS does more much filtration than all the stuff he has running. I think he paid close to $1000 for his filtration setup, and a $50 ATS puts it to shame, and $40+ of that $50 is for LED lights. So bottom line, I do not think chaeto is a very efficient means of exporting excess nutrients when compared to other types of macro algae available.

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    sweet.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ace25 View Post
    As far as I know, cheato doesn't grow in freshwater.
    I meant the moss was for freshwater, probably something like java moss or christmas moss.

    I am curious how the different types of cheato work too.... I know people usually act like "cheato" is a single species... but I know for a fact that I have at least 2 species in my little quarantine tank, they look and feel completely different, even though they were both sold to me as cheato.

    Also keep in mind this is not meant as a replacement for a real algae scrubber. This is an idea for a commercially available HOB filter that is a replacement for something like a penguin biowheel or aquaclear filter.

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